Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, data, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communication system can simultaneously support communication for multiple wireless terminals, also referred to as user equipment (UE) or mobile node (MN). Each terminal communicates with one or more base stations via transmissions on the forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from the base stations to the terminals, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from the terminals to the base stations. This communication link may be established via a single-in-single-out, multiple-in-single-out or a multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) system.
To supplement conventional mobile phone network base stations, also referred to as macro network base stations, additional base stations may be deployed to provide more robust wireless coverage to mobile planned service areas. For example, wireless relay stations and small-coverage base stations (e.g., commonly referred to as access point base stations, picocells, Home NodeBs (HNBs), femto access points, or femto cells) may be deployed for incremental capacity growth, richer user experience, and in-building coverage. Typically, such small-coverage base stations are connected to the Internet and the mobile operator's network via a DSL router or cable modem. As these other types of base stations may be added to the conventional mobile phone network (e.g., the backhaul) in a different manner than conventional base stations (e.g., macro base stations), there is a need for effective techniques for managing these other types of base stations and their associated user equipment.
For a multi-radio terminal, it is desirable that IP flows may be mapped to available radio resources. One essential input parameter for attempting to optimize the IP flows is the Network Performance Information (NPI). For example, it would not be desirable to switch to a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) interface if it is congested and will perform worse than an available cellular interface. Discovering NPI may be achieved by the terminal sending or receiving traffic over WLAN interface. However, both of these operations consume time, power and network resources. Moreover, the terminal cannot reliably predict the performance of a scheduled cellular system such as Evolution-Data Optimized or High Speed Packet Access systems, and thus a particular traffic model A cannot be used to predict performance for a traffic model B. Thus, it would be desirable for a terminal to be able to obtain NPI from other nodes directly